Kris Joseph's near-miss dunk and other notes from Syracuse-St. John's game

Dennis Nett / The Post-StandardSyracuse basketball player Kris Joseph drives the lane in the Orange's game against St.Johns in the second half of their quarter-final game of the Big East Tournament.

New York – Kris Joseph was headed to ESPN’s Top 10, while St. John’s guard Dwight Hardy was headed to screen-savers all across Central New York.

With about 11 minutes left in Syracuse’s 79-73 victory over St. John’s in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament on Thursday, Joseph got out on the fastbreak, took off for the basket and tried out his best Blake Griffin imitation over Hardy, who took the ill-advised path of trying to defend Joseph on the play.

But Joseph’s dunk struck the back of the rim and caromed away.

“I didn’t how I missed,’’ Joseph said after the game. “Did it go off the back rim? Man. That was like the retro-Jo right there.’’

As St. John’s puushed the ball in the other direction, Syracuse’s Brandon Triche stole the ball and then threw it back to the other end where Joseph finished off a relatively pedestrian slam.

“I was supposed to finish it,’’ Joseph said of the first dunk attempt. “I thought I did for a minute until I heard the ‘Aaaaahhh.’ Then I said, ‘Damn, man, let me get back on defense and then we got a steal and I got a dunk so it was cool.’’

Boeheim still doesn't like double-bye

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is not a fan of the Big East’s double-bye format, which ‘rewards’ the top four teams in the regular season with double-byes into the conference tournament’s quarterfinals.

The double-bye came into existence when the Big East decided to expand its tournament to include all 16 conference teams. However, in the two years of the current set-up, the double-bye teams went 3-5 in the quarterfinals.

Last year, Syracuse was the No. 1 seed, but lost to Georgetown in the quarters.
Even after beating St. John’s, 79-73, in Thursday’s quarterfinals, Boeheim remained opposed to the double-bye.

“I’ve said for two years now, when you sit around ‘til Thursday, it’s not good,’’ Boeheim said. “I think it’s difficult for the top seeds to do that. I’m glad we won so that everybody doesn’t think I’m crying, but I don’t think it’s a good way to do it.’’

ESPNU and ESPN Classic to show 2009 6-OT thriller

Syracuse and Connecticut will meet in the Big East Tournament for the first time since the 2009 6-overtime marathon.

In honor of the game that spawned almost as many t-shirts as it had overtime periods, ESPN Classic and ESPNU will televise the 2009 game Friday afternoon.

ESPN Classic will televise the entire game from 3 to 7 p.m.

For those who prefer to cut to the chase, ESPNU will televise just the six overtimes from 1 to 3 p.m.